This week I learned about social bookmarking, and I must confess it was a completely new learning experience. I have just recently begun utilizing the bookmarks and reading list features available in Safari, so the connectedness of social bookmarking sites was a whole new world. Richardson (2010) supports the use of these types of sites and contends they allow groups of people to build complex learning networks that provide continuous conversations (p. 86). The idea of sites like Delicious and Diigo were intriguing to me because of the role each individual plays in organizing the content of the Web and being part of a community of researchers. Richardson (2010) notes that social bookmarking sites allow us to connect to information in ways that libraries simply cannot (p. 91). The Web is filled with all sorts of information, and social bookmarking allows us to organize that information and construct our own knowledge from it. It creates a very personalized kind of learning network. I decided to try one of these sites for myself and set up an account with Diigo. Diigo offers many benefits to its users. The organization is one of my favorite parts. My library is quite small at the moment, but I know it will grow and eventually be very difficult to find resources if they are not tagged. Therefore, the tagging is very important and something to think about when saving items so that you can find them easily in the future. Since Diigo is cloud based, you have access to it on any device, which allows me the freedom of working wherever I choose. Another great feature is the ability to annotate. I love annotating articles, and Diigo lets you share these, including your annotations, through Facebook, Twitter, or email with anyone, even if they don’t use Diigo. Finally, Diigo lets you create a personal learning network that is tailored to your interests. This seems to be one major benefit of any social bookmarking tool. It’s as if you have you very own newspaper created around only the things you want to read. My first experience into the world of social bookmarking was a bit overwhelming. I can see how the tags for each resource are extremely helpful in finding information you have saved or searching for new information. However, as a novice user, I felt I didn’t even know where to begin when it came to searching for groups, users, or topics. The ability to see other people’s lists has been extremely helpful. It is a way to access information on a topic and someone else has done the work of pulling it all together. I did find some great articles while searching on Diigo. One interesting resource I found is a six-part Edutopia blog post on iPad apps for each stage in Bloom’s taxonomy. Another great find was Byrne’s blog post about the World Digital Library. This website contains over 10,000 primary documents and images from all over the world. It is a must see for any social studies teacher. I can see using Diigo both personally and with my students. I know I will enjoy reading articles that have personal interest to me. I have already created a small list with a few articles I plan to read when I have time, and I’ve kept this list private. However, I see the usefulness of Diigo with students, and I’ve created a public list to use with them. In the past, I have used Nettrekker to create folders of web pages on specific topics so students can easily access that information. I think Diigo could accomplish the same task and allow me to build lists on specific topics that I can share with my students. However, Diigo offers them the added benefit of being able to highlight and annotate within the articles. Richardson (2010) suggests using this feature of Diigo collaboratively and leaving notes on pages for others to see. This is something I would like to try with my students in the upcoming school year. Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oak, California: Corwin.

Like you, I haven't used social bookmarking sites very much. I'm embarrassed to say that, but it's true. I feel like I've been missing out on so much! I agree with your comments concerning social bookmarking sites, particularly the point of using others' lists on topics may be a huge time saver. When we've used social bookmarking and have found users who consistently bookmark good, reliable resources on topics, then we have found resources with one click without having to mull through so much on our own. This will be a great tool to use in the classroom with our students to help them stay focused and be sure they are using reliable sources of information for assignments. Won't it be great to have our students find and bookmark resources? I see this as a great tool to assist in teaching them to evaluate resources and then sharing with each other.